First Edition: May 12, 2023

KFF Health News: AI May Be On Its Way To Your Doctor’s Office, But It’s Not Ready To See Patients 
What use could health care have for someone who makes things up, can’t keep a secret, doesn’t really know anything, and, when speaking, simply fills in the next word based on what’s come before? Lots, if that individual is the newest form of artificial intelligence, according to some of the biggest companies out there. Companies pushing the latest AI technology — known as “generative AI” — are piling on: Google and Microsoft want to bring types of so-called large language models to health care. Big firms that are familiar to folks in white coats — but maybe less so to your average Joe and Jane — are equally enthusiastic: Electronic medical records giants Epic and Oracle Cerner aren’t far behind. The space is crowded with startups, too. (Tahir, 5/12)

KFF Health News: ‘A System In Crisis’: Dysfunctional Federal Disability Programs Force The Poor To Pass Up Money 
Brenda Powell had suffered a stroke and was in debilitating pain when she called the Social Security Administration last year to seek disability benefits. The former Louisiana state office worker struggled at times to write her name or carry a glass of water. Powell, then 62, believed she could no longer work, and she was worried about how to pay for medical care with only a $433 monthly pension. (Clasen-Kelly, 5/12)

KFF Health News: Students In Rural Colorado Are Left Without Options As Specialized Schools Close 
At first glance, nothing seems particularly unusual about the four-room school in this western Colorado city. Inside, six students are learning about radioactivity. The walls of their classroom are plastered with motivational messages like “Determination” and “Courage” scribbled onto paper cutouts of stars and moons. A closer look reveals that Hilltop Day Treatment is no ordinary school. There are no backpacks or lockers. Students are escorted to the restroom. Hugs aren’t allowed, a precaution against inappropriate touching by students who do not yet understand physical boundaries. And before lunch, the students break from their regular lessons for group therapy. (Bichell and Santoro, 5/12)

KFF Health News: The Crisis Is Officially Ending, But Covid Confusion Lives On
The formal end May 11 of the national public health emergency for covid-19 will usher in lots of changes in the way Americans get vaccines, treatment, and testing for the coronavirus. It will also change the way some people get their health insurance, with millions likely to lose coverage altogether. (5/11)

Roll Call: FDA Finalizes New Rules On Blood Donations 
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday finalized new rules eliminating blanket restrictions on blood donations from LGBT men, responding to long-standing pressure from advocates, blood banks and public health groups. The new guidelines are instead focused on individual risk behaviors, rather than sexual orientation. The rules block anyone from donating blood if they have had new or multiple sexual partners and have also had anal sex in the previous three months. Anal sex carries a much higher risk of HIV transmission than vaginal sex. (Clason, 5/11)

The Washington Post: What New Questions Will I Be Asked When I Donate Blood?
Here are answers to a few common questions about how the guidelines could affect eligibility to donate blood in the United States. (Amenabar, Nirappil and McGinley, 5/12)

Stat: Senate Panel Passes A Suite Of Drug Pricing Bills — But Fails To Advance One Major PBM Reform
The Senate health committee on Thursday passed a package of bills aimed at speeding generic drug competition and reining in drug middlemen business practices. But they failed to pass an ambitious reform to the pharmacy benefit manager sector, despite strong bipartisan support for it. (Wilkerson, 5/11)

Stat: Wyden Decries 'Astonishingly Low' Tax Rates For Pharma Companies
Thanks to changes in tax law six years ago, several of the largest pharmaceutical companies saw their tax rates fall substantially, but they also reported that most of their profits were shifted offshore in an effort to avoid paying U.S. taxes, according to a memo by a U.S. Senate Committee. (Silverman, 5/11)

Reuters: Pfizer CEO Calls US Drug Price Plan 'Negotiation With A Gun To Your Head'
Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla called U.S. plans to negotiate drug prices for its Medicare health program "negotiation with a gun to your head" and said he expects drugmakers to sue in an attempt to halt the process. "It is not negotiation at all. It is price setting," Bourla said at a Reuters newsmaker event on Thursday, referring to the Biden Administration’s signature drug pricing reform, part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The law aims to save $25 billion through price negotiations by 2031 for Americans who pay more for medicines than any other country. (Erman and Satija, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Debt-Ceiling Meeting Postponed
A highly anticipated meeting scheduled for Friday between President Biden and congressional leaders to chart a path forward on lifting the debt ceiling was postponed until next week, officials said. The delay will give White House and congressional staff more time to make progress in their closed-door spending talks, the officials said, adding that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) was unable to attend the Friday meeting because of a scheduling conflict. (Restuccia, Andrews and Harrison, 5/11)

Barron's: Breaching The Debt Ceiling Could Cripple Medicare And The Healthcare System 
A sustained breach of the debt ceiling would have a catastrophic impact on the country’s healthcare system, experts say, with the fallout reaching beyond government insurance programs like Medicare to the millions of Americans with private coverage. ... “Ultimately, if the federal government can’t pay the bills, the entire thing stops,” said Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University. “The whole health system collapses.” (O'Brien, 5/12)

The Washington Post: 18-To-20-Year-Olds Can’t Be Barred From Buying Handguns, Judge Rules 
A federal judge in Virginia has declared unconstitutional a set of laws and regulations that prohibit federally licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds, finding that the measures violated the Second Amendment. ... Gun-control advocates say the decision, if allowed to stand, would significantly increase gun access for a population that research shows is more impulsive and responsible for a disproportionate number of fatal shootings. But attorneys on both sides of the case said they expected the Justice Department to appeal and request a stay, which would prevent Payne’s ruling from taking effect while higher courts weigh the case. (Rizzo, 5/11)

Los Angeles Times: Texas Bill Would Give Schoolchildren 'Battlefield' Training
About a year after a gunman massacred 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, a bill has been introduced by a state lawmaker to offer annual training to elementary school children on how to tie tourniquets or pack bleeding wounds during mass-casualty incidents. (Petri, 5/11)

The Hill: Uvalde Shooting Victim’s Father: ‘If These Laws Don’t Change, It’s Gonna Keep On Happening’
The father of one of the victims of last year’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, urged state lawmakers this week to push forward with gun control legislation, arguing that “if these laws don’t change, it’s gonna keep on happening.” In an interview with CBS News, Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jacklyn was killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting last May, said that it’s been an “emotional rollercoaster” since the incident. Cazares has been an advocate for gun control legislation in his home state. (Oshin, 5/11)

The New York Times: The U.S. Built A European-Style Welfare State. It’s Largely Over. 
In the early, panicked days of the pandemic, the United States government did something that was previously unimaginable. It transformed itself, within weeks, into something akin to a European-style welfare state. Congress rapidly fortified the social safety net, making it much stronger than at any point. It made policies like Medicaid and food stamps more generous. It created new federal benefits like paid sick and caregiving leave, and free school lunches. And it made some pandemic benefits, like stimulus checks and child allowances, nearly universal. The government is estimated to have spent about $5 trillion helping individuals and businesses since March 2020. (Miller and Parlapiano, 5/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID At New ‘Tipping Point’ Says UCSF’s Bob Wachter, Experts
Bay Area epidemiologists, infectious disease experts, and public health officials agree that we are in a much better place now than when the emergency order was enacted by the former administration in March 2020. However, they said, it is too soon to declare closure. “It no longer meets my definition of a pandemic,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, the chair of the department of medicine at UCSF. Still, he added that there’s no lingo in epidemiology to accurately describe the ongoing threat from the virus that has subsided but remains a threat. “Nobody has quite invented that word.” (Vaziri, 5/11)

Stat: House Democrat Demands Answers On Long Covid Research
A powerful Democratic lawmaker is interrogating the National Institutes of Health over its slow progress in addressing long Covid, citing a recent STAT investigation into the agency’s lack of urgency. Rep. Anna Eshoo, the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee’s top Democrat, sent a letter to NIH acting Director Lawrence Tabak on Tuesday highlighting the agency’s delays in enrolling clinical trials, the lack of relief for patients, and the exclusion of long Covid from the White House’s Next Gen program to accelerate development of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. The Energy and Commerce Committee is responsible for overseeing the NIH. (Cohrs, 5/11)

PBS NewsHour: ‘Why Aren’t You Taking Care Of Us?’ Why Long COVID Patients Struggle For Solutions
For long COVID patients, the pandemic is far from over. The U.S. public health emergency expires today, and many fear that their struggle – to be recognized and treated within the nation’s fragmented health care system – is only beginning. When it comes to finding expert guidance and treatment for the complex tangle of disorders and illnesses, “COVID is [no doctor’s] full-time job,” said long COVID patient Liza Fisher. “Nobody’s doing this full-time to give patients the kind of care they need — it’s very complex and individualized.” (Santhanam, 5/11)

CIDRAP: COVID-Related Stress, Depression May Have Altered Placentas During Pregnancy
Maternal stress and depression amid the COVID-19 pandemic can alter the structure, texture, and other characteristics of the placenta during pregnancy, although the long-term neurodevelopmental impact on children is unknown, according to an ongoing observational study published yesterday in Scientific Reports. Researchers from MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare the placentas of 63 pregnant women without known COVID-19 exposure during the pandemic with 165 control patients who were pregnant before the pandemic. (Van Beusekom, 5/11)

Axios: Exclusive: Inside HHS' Plan To Develop Next-Generation COVID Treatments
The Biden administration is pouring billions of dollars into the development of future coronavirus vaccines, trying to develop a sequel to Operation Warp Speed even as the public health emergency ends. The Department of Health and Human Services is fleshing out targets and putting an organizational framework around the $5 billion "Project NextGen," which will operate similarly to the Trump-era public-private partnership in speeding the development of new treatments. (Gonzalez, 5/11)

AP: Illinois Gov. Pritzker Signs Law That Gives Benefits To Chicago First Responders Disabled By COVID
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed a law providing full disability benefits to Chicago police officers and firefighters struck by COVID-19 before vaccines were available, presiding over an emotional statehouse ceremony which marked the end of a financial struggle for responders including the brother of Comptroller Susana Mendoza. The Act-of-Duty law, HB3162, ensures disability benefits of 75% of salary plus health insurance for anyone unable to work after contracting the coronavirus from March 9, 2020, when the flare-up intensified in Illinois, until June 30, 2021. The law grants them the presumption that they picked up the illness on the job. (O'Connor, 5/10)

Axios: DeSantis Signs "Medical Freedom" Laws
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday sought to draw a contrast with the expiring COVID-19 public health emergency, signing a set of "medical freedom" measures into law, including bans on mask and vaccine mandates, and new conscience protections for health providers. (Reed, 5/12)

Reuters: Teen Mental Health Emergency Visits Decline In U.S. As Pandemic Eases, CDC Says 
U.S. adolescents made fewer weekly emergency department (ED) visits for mental health conditions in Fall 2022 compared to a year earlier, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday. By late 2022, pandemic restrictions had been loosened or lifted and adolescents had generally returned to schools, with better social engagement and reduced isolation linked with improved mental and behavioral health, the researchers noted. (5/11)

AP: Sex? Sexual Intercourse? Neither? Teens Weigh In On Evolving Definitions — And Habits 
Situationships. “Sneaky links.” The “talking stage,” the flirtatious getting-to-know-you phase — typically done via text — that can lead to a hookup. High school students are having less sexual intercourse. That’s what the studies say. But that doesn’t mean they’re having less sex. The language of young love and lust, and the actions behind it, are evolving. And the shift is not being adequately captured in national studies, experts say. (Gecker, 5/12)

CIDRAP: Drug Shortages Have Worsened And May Only Increase In The Future, Experts Say
COVID-19 snarled the US healthcare supply chain, but it was in trouble long before, experts say. What's more, drug and medical-device shortages could get worse, Tammy Beckham, DVM, PhD, associate director of the US Food and Drug Association's (FDA's) Resilient Supply Chain Program at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), told attendees at this month's MedCon 2023. (Van Beusekom, 5/11)

CNN: Cancer Drugs Among Top 5 Most Affected By Shortages In The US
As the US faces a near-record number of drug shortages, cancer treatments are among the hardest hit. There is an active shortage of about two dozen chemotherapy drugs, the fifth most of any drug category, according to data from the end of March from the University of Utah Drug Information Service. “The fact that we have this many chemo drugs in shortage is really concerning,” said Michael Ganio, senior director of pharmacy practice and quality at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. (McPhillips, 5/11)

Reuters: Exclusive: Wegovy, Other Weight Loss Drugs ‘No Silver Bullet’, Says WHO Amid Obesity Review 
New highly-effective weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy are not a “silver bullet” for addressing the rapid rise in global obesity rates, the World Health Organization’s nutrition chief told Reuters, as the agency conducts its first review of obesity management guidelines in more than 20 years. (Rigby, 5/12)

Stat: AbbVie Sues A Behind-The-Scenes Company For Exploiting Its Patient Assistance Program 
AbbVie has filed a lawsuit against a behind-the-scenes company that helps health plan sponsors take advantage of the assistance programs created by drug companies to provide specialty medicines to patients for free. At issue is a maneuver called alternative funding, which a growing number of drugmakers contend exploits their charitable programs. Basically, a plan sponsor excludes certain expensive drugs from coverage and taps an outside vendor to help uninsured and underinsured patients obtain the medicines for free from patient assistance programs. (Silverman, 5/11)

The New York Times: U.S. News Releases Its Latest, Disputed Rankings Of Law And Medical Schools 
U.S. News & World Report finally released its annual rankings of top law and medical schools on Thursday, after boycotts by those institutions, disputes over methodology, and a delay of weeks. A few law schools shuffled positions, but the ones at the top of the new list were familiar — Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Duke, Harvard and New York University. Yale, which was the first to boycott, retained its No. 1 position, though in a tie this year with Stanford. Columbia, which also participated in the boycott, dropped to eighth place from fourth. (Saul, 5/11)

AP: Maryland Officials Urge Medicaid Recipients To Renew Coverage
Maryland officials announced a public awareness campaign on Thursday to remind Medicaid recipients to renew their coverage since the federal government is reinstating a requirement that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic for states to verify eligibility. The announcement came on the same day that the nation’s COVID-19 health emergency was ending. (Witte, 5/11)

Axios: Closing Rural Iowa Birthing Units Is Hurting Delivery Outcomes 
Expectant mothers are less likely to access prenatal care in rural counties where birthing units have shut down, despite other prenatal providers still being available locally. Pregnant mothers who attend less prenatal care appointments are more likely to deliver prematurely, and both parent and baby have a higher risk of complications. (Ta, 5/11)

Columbus Dispatch: 10 Ohio Hospitals Closed Labor And Delivery Services Since June 2022
Access to maternity care continues to decline in the United States and in Ohio, with multiple maternity wards closing in the past year. Since June 2022, the Ohio Hospital Association has counted 10 maternity wards closing across the state, according to spokesman John Palmer. Some merged or moved to a partner hospital, but Palmer said the reasons given for the closures centered around workforce issues, operational costs and a decline in use due to fewer births in Ohio. (King, 5/11)

AP: Ohio Opioid Settlement Panel's Records Must Be Public, Top State Court Says
The state panel that will decide how Ohio distributes more than half of the money it will receive from a nationwide settlement regarding the opioid addiction crisis must make its records publicly available, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In their unanimous ruling, the justices rejected the OneOhio Recovery Foundation’s claim that it was a private nonprofit corporation and therefore not subject to the state’s open public records law. The justices found the foundation “misstates its function,” noting it’s not responsible for providing treatment, education or prevention services, but rather giving settlement money to those who do provide such services. (5/11)

AP: Federal Government's $1 Billion Effort To Recruit Next Generation Of Doctors At Risk 
Thousands of women living in rural, eastern Maryland have few options when they’re looking for someone to deliver their babies. The local hospital doesn’t have an obstetrics doctor on staff so most women in this region, flanked by sprawling farm fields and antique stores, turn to the Chesapeake Health Care clinic. Five of the 10 obstetricians and midwives at the clinic are there because of the National Health Service Corps, which promises to pay off $50,000 in medical school debt for every two years that a doctor serves working in rural, urban or poor areas. (Seitz, 5/12)

NBC News: Drug-Resistant Ringworm: CDC Says At Least 2 Cases Found In U.S.
Two cases of highly contagious, drug-resistant ringworm infections have been detected in New York City — the first such cases reported in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The infection was first identified in a 47-year-old woman who had developed a bad case of ringworm, also known as tinea, while traveling in Bangladesh. (Edwards, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Bacteria Linked To Tainted Baby Formula May Become Nationally Reportable
The federal government may soon ask states to notify them when doctors or epidemiologists identify infections caused by a common bacteria that can cause severe illness in the very young and was at the center of last year’s baby formula crisis. A working group convened by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists is considering recommending that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ask states to track and submit cases of Cronobacter sakazakii. As they do with salmonella and more than 100 other pathogens, state and local health departments would be asked to report documented cases to the CDC so the bacteria can be tracked nationally. (Reiley, 5/11)

NBC News: Eyedrops Bacteria: Why Woman's Infection Diagnosis Took Months
How a rare type of bacteria infected and ultimately blinded Nancy Montz's left eye was a head-scratcher for Dr. Morgan Morelli, a physician who specializes in infectious diseases. The Ohio woman had been infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium resistant to most antibiotics. Morelli, chief fellow in the division of infectious diseases and HIV medicine at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, had never seen this kind of bacteria in an eye. (Edwards, 5/11)

The Mercury News: Bitten By An Iguana? You Could Get A Rare Bacterial Infection, New Study Says
Iguanas, those pesky green critters that come out in full force during the summer months in South Florida, are more than just a nuisance. They also pose health risks. While touching an iguana or its feces can cause salmonella, a new Centers of Disease Control & Prevention report links an iguana’s bite to a rare bacterial infection called mycobacterium marinum. (Krischer Goodman, 5/11)

NPR: Peloton Recalls Popular Exercise Bike
The current recall involves bikes with model number PL01 and sold in the U.S. from January 2018 to this month. Peloton received 35 reports of the bike's seat post breaking and detaching from the bike during use — including 13 reports of users suffering a broken wrist, lacerations and bruises after falling from the bike, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. (Diaz, 5/11)